1. Field of the Invention
The basic properties of a piston engine consist of the cylinder head, chamber, piston, and crank shaft. This rotary engine has the same properties as the piston engine except the position of these elements differ. In the piston engine at the time of initial fuel combustion, the piston is in a near perpendicular alignment of its axis. A significant amount of the energy being generated by the fuel combustion is therefore lost in this straight, downward push against the axis. In the rotary engine the piston is always rotating about a central shaft and therefore the forces generated by the combusting fuel is acting tangentially to the radius of the piston (wheel), thus transferring a maximum amount of energy to the shaft--meaning more power from less fuel and less air contamination. Another advantage of the rotary engine is the simplicity of design over the piston engine in that there are no reciprocating parts, thus making for a smoother and quieter running engine and keeping maintenance at a minimum. Because of this simplicity there are less parts to the engine and thus production costs are significantly less.
Adapting the principle of the invention, that is, two mating wheels which intermesh within their respective housings, this engine could use steam, air or pressurized fluids as a power source rather than combustible fuels. In addition this concept could be adopted to be used as a compressor or a vacuum pump.
2. The Prior Art
U.S. Pat. No. 3,550,565 describes an internal combustion engine in which three rotary members cooperate to form a compressor for the purpose of compressing a combustible air-fuel mixture. Carburetors communicate with the housing of the three rotary members and the compressed mixture is passed to a duplicate set of three rotary members which act as a motor. The rotary engine of this invention has two rotary units, and each unit has two compressor wheels which feed fuel to both sides of the power wheel. The design of each rotary unit is identical; but each wheel has a lobe on its outer periphery which forms a 180.degree. arc. These lobes are offset by 180.degree. in respect to the adjacent rotary unit. The lobes having leading and trailing lips form an expanding and contracting compression and combustion chambers.